Should we started referring to him as just "The Marshon" now?

Tim Abromaitis broke out of a scoring slump, scoring 15 points in the first eight minutes of the game and finishing with 28. Its just the second time since January 4th he's scored more than 13.

Ben Hansbrough continued his push for Big East player of the year, hitting for a career-high 32 points.

Notre Dame bounced back from yet another road beating by going into the Dunkin Donuts Center and holding off a scrappy Providence team 94-93.

All of those are legitimate and relevant storylines coming out of Wednesday's game between the Friars and the Irish. Yet, no one is going to be talking about that tomorrow.

Why?


Because Marshon Brooks went off for a Big East record 52 points, breaking the 20 year old record held by another Friar, Eric Murdock. He had a Big East record with 20 made field goals as well (on just 28 attempts), breaking a record set by Steve Rich of Miami. Brooks now has the highest single-game scoring total in the country this season -- besting Jimmer's 47 points at Utah -- and saw his average get bumped by a full point, from 24.4 ppg to 25.4 ppg.

"I was feeling it. It was going to be tough to stop me," Brooks said after the game.

"That was staggering, and I'm glad we escaped," Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey said.

Perhaps most impressive was that Brooks scored 15 points in the final three minutes to nearly lead Providence to an improbable comeback. The Friars were down by as much as 16 points, but Brooks got the lead down to just two points on three different occasions. He hit a three with 1.8 seconds left to give us the final margin and break the 50 point barrier.

Now, before I'm done with this post, let's have some fun with it. Brooks' 52 points was more than 12 different teams scored tonight. That includes Alabama's 51-49 win over Auburn and Morgan State's 42-39 (seriously) win over Delaware State. But it doesn't include Wisconsin, because Josh Gasser hit a buzzer-beating three to beat Michigan (and Marshon) 53-52.

If you throw in the 60 combined points from Hansbrough and Abromaitis, the game's three stars managed to put up 112 total points, more than were scored in five different games. Two others finished at 113 total points.

Not a lot of defense played at The Dunk tonight.